VOGONS


First post, by W4iteFlame

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I am a bit too late, but I have to finish this sorta gestalt of mine.

So, not so long ago I spotted this old PC in a far dusty corner of a storage room at a place I was working in.

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Flytech Technology Carry I. And it's condition is rather awful. I was not even able to get inside it's case without potentially damaging it any more, and I've found no info about how to do it safely.

If I leave it be it will probably just be destroyed by external conditions. If it was not already.

So my question is: Is it worse anything to old tech enthusiasts? Not money wise, I just don't know if it is by any means an interesting piece of technology, or if it can continue it's way to the recycling plant.

Reply 1 of 13, by Pierre32

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I'd say someone would be very keen to restore that. As far as I know these ranged from XT class through to 386. The integrated gameport and audio make this particularly interesting IMO. Don't send it to landfill 😀

Reply 2 of 13, by Cuttoon

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That is a nice find, rust aside.

Did not do your googeling, but I'd guess it's a budget 286 or 386 system ca. 1990.
Nice to have a matching CRT.
Those micro systems are kinda neat, most full height desktops are bulky AF by todays standards. That one is small even for a pizzabox design.

If it were mine, I'd at least take it apart and see if I can persuade the system to POST.

Now, a main catch with this one will be the external power supply. As far as I can make it out, that's probably a propietary socket with multiple voltages supplied.
So, either you didn't include the original PSU in the picture or you're in a bit of a pickle there.
But, the motherboard probably has the usual AT connector? If so, get a modern pico PSU with an adapter, if it's running at all.

If it's dead, still likely you'll make someone happy by putting it on ebay. The CRT, maybe not so much.

I like jumpers.

Reply 3 of 13, by Cuttoon

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I got curious and as it turns out, that thing has its own wiki entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry-I

So, in the same timeframe, it might well be an even older platform, starting at an i8088 xt.

Also, the display connector of yours is db-9, not db-15 and the monitor is monochrome, to match. So either truly pre-1990 tech or they were pusing the whole "budget" idea a bit far 😉

Best thing about the wiki entry: The power supply is pictured with a pinout and it appears to be a standard mini din connector. So, no rocket science to replace that.

I like jumpers.

Reply 4 of 13, by snufkin

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Sticker on the back seems to say it's an engineering sample of the FT-8111, so maybe a development of the FT-8100 in this advert from 1990: http://vintagescan.blogspot.com/2015/12/flyte … rry-i-1990.html

The 8200 is listed as having 2 serial ports, and this one only has 1, so it's probably based on the 8100. But that advert only has an HD as an option on the 8200, and it looks like this one might have a HD fitted (40 pin ribbon cable, plus strangely wired molex power connector). From the adverts then I think the 8100 had an 8088 and the 8200 had a 286.

The Flytech keyboard looks neat, might be worth seeing if that's stored anywhere nearby: https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?p=386208#p386208
Auto-switching XT/AT. They went to some effort to make it small, but still kept a huge enter key.

Will take a bit of work to make the case nice, and you won't know the state of the inside until you can get it apart. Would make a nice project, but might involve a lot of having to work things out since there doesn't seem to be any documentation. Looks like Flytech still exist though: https://www.flytech.com/milestone.php so if you're very lucky they might still have service manuals or other information.

Reply 5 of 13, by Jo22

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Sure it is!!

I do have a similar model, it's perhaps my most beautiful PC! 😃

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D73mlQhw66g

Edit: Or was it this one? 🤔
The first one mentioned has TTL video, this one has VGA..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcyDC2mGQa4

Edit: Both are 286es..

Please wait. I'll try to make some pictures soon.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 6 of 13, by Jo22

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Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-15, 12:44:

Also, the display connector of yours is db-9, not db-15 and the monitor is monochrome, to match. So either truly pre-1990 tech or they were pusing the whole "budget" idea a bit far 😉

No no, the TTL video totally makes sense. These little PCs were used as terminal computers, not simply outdated models.

And Hercules/MDA video is perfect for this. In 1990, it was still common and readily available.
Developers at the time often had a secondary MDA/HGC card installed for their debugging software.
Also, TTL monitors are/were very very simple. And lightweight and require little current. 😁

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 7 of 13, by Cuttoon

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Jo22 wrote on 2022-03-15, 14:06:
No no, the TTL video totally makes sense. These little PCs were used as terminal computers, not simply outdated models. […]
Show full quote
Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-15, 12:44:

Also, the display connector of yours is db-9, not db-15 and the monitor is monochrome, to match. So either truly pre-1990 tech or they were pusing the whole "budget" idea a bit far 😉

No no, the TTL video totally makes sense. These little PCs were used as terminal computers, not simply outdated models.

And Hercules/MDA video is perfect for this. In 1990, it was still common and readily available.
Developers at the time often had a secondary MDA/HGC card installed for their debugging software.
Also, TTL monitors are/were very very simple. And lightweight and require little current. 😁

Tbh, I know about all the pre-VGA and 8 bit stuff by name and such, but mostly ignore it - just my personal level of ignorance. For me, "modern history" of PCs start with the Am386 and my interest is not so much retro as it is nostalgia as I grew up with those things, admittedly. Not sure why I got this thing, for example.

That being said, the machine at hand here - I guess "thin client" were a thing since long before that. Just odd that it came with "audio" connector!

Going by that ad snufkin kindly provided, the thing was actually meant to be carried around.
The ad is a bit of cultural studies on its own. A very sober PC and a side of hard liquor. Cleary not cut towards the home market, playing with the predominant pasttime of sales reps and supply managers 😉
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Lo-mLcOVumo/VoJhi5R … 281990%2529.jpg

I like jumpers.

Reply 8 of 13, by Jo22

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It's all good , don't worry. 😅 I didn't mean to question your experience etc. Thanks for the link, also. 🙂👍

Perhaps it is/was just a local/regional/national thing, also, dunno.
My father says he saw TTL monitors up to the mid-90s in computer stores.
But that was here in good ol' Germany. Perhaps users and IT professionals were a bit conservative, also.
Things that worked were kept for aong time.
I mean, ISDN was still considered hi-tec in the year 2000, whereas the rest of the world had T1, DSL and cable modem connections since the mid-90s..
And then, there's FAX. Often made fun of, but without it, this country would have to fall back to Telex or pigeons to send documents. And that's not even a joke. 🙄

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 9 of 13, by Cuttoon

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Jo22 wrote on 2022-03-15, 17:29:

It's all good , don't worry. 😅 I didn't mean to question your experience etc. Thanks for the link, also. 🙂👍

oh please, "none taken".

Jo22 wrote on 2022-03-15, 17:29:

Perhaps it is/was just a local/regional/national thing, also, dunno.
My father says he saw TTL monitors up to the mid-90s in computer stores.

All that "Wintel" gear became synonymous with "personal computer" veeery gradually. There alwas was a whole world out there the average user had no idea about.
Some German OEMs in the first half of the 1990s made some cautious experiments with Alphas or keeping the Amiga alive, but none of those stuck.
Still not quite sure what TTL means, but e.g. I worked for some months at the university at Sun UltraSparc workstations. Those hade very impressive fixed frequency CRTs utterly alien to the PC world.

Jo22 wrote on 2022-03-15, 17:29:
But that was here in good ol' Germany. Perhaps users and IT professionals were a bit conservative, also. Things that worked were […]
Show full quote

But that was here in good ol' Germany. Perhaps users and IT professionals were a bit conservative, also.
Things that worked were kept for aong time.
I mean, ISDN was still considered hi-tec in the year 2000, whereas the rest of the world had T1, DSL and cable modem connections since the mid-90s..
And then, there's FAX. Often made fun of, but without it, this country would have to fall back to Telex or pigeons to send documents. And that's not even a joke. 🙄

Never change a running system. The network infrastructure has become a bit of a running gag, but ISDN was a simple case of "victory desease" - it was really good for its time and a telephone line.
They developed it in the 70s, being at the very forefront of digitalization, then equipped the whole former GDR with what was then the world's most advanced telephone system.
Other places went from POTS directly to DSL.
I was glad to use ISDN from 1998 to 2001. Good ping times.

I like jumpers.

Reply 10 of 13, by imi

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definitely worth saving, especially because it's an engineering sample, please don't bring it to the recycler.

I have a few of these, different models from 286 to 386, even got one with it's original carrying case and all accessories, but I'm missing the 8088 version, I stupidly missed out on one on the local classifieds by waiting for the price to come down.

Reply 11 of 13, by chinny22

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One mans trash is another mans treasure as they say!
Someone somewhere would want it. The fact that it's in a rough state is fine, plenty of people enjoy the process or restoring old PC's then sell them on.
Main drawback will be shipping, CRT's are a pain to pack safely, but if you put it up for free or next o nothing on Facebook Market place or whatever I'm sure someone will grab it.

Reply 12 of 13, by Jo22

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Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-15, 17:51:

Still not quite sure what TTL means, but e.g. I worked for some months at the university at Sun UltraSparc workstations. Those hade very impressive fixed frequency CRTs utterly alien to the PC world.

Hi! It means Transistor-Transistor-Logik. Before TTL, there was Diode-Diode-Logik etc.
When TTL became popular, it did set a standard for voltage levels that were corresponding to logic states : +5v and 0v. For logic states 1 and 0. Or vice versa.
The 7400 series of ICs also uses TTL.

After TTL, a new star was born: CMOS.
It used lower voltages by default, but many modern ICs are compatible to TTL lebels still.
Like the 74HC00 series.
- The CMOS counterpart to the 7400 series was the 4000 series, but it is discontinued.

TTL monitors were thus monitors that used *digital signals on their video connector or internally (full on, full off).
MDA (Hercules) and CGA monitors belong into this category.
But some PCs, like the Commodore PET had internal monitors that filtered out grayscale information.
The Atari ST monochrome monitor also used TTL-like signals.

(*digital in the sense of "fingered" -> like a comb, pre-defined. Digital can be binary, but it's not limited to it)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_4000-se … grated_circuits

Edit: Edited.

Jo22 wrote on 2022-03-15, 17:29:
But that was here in good ol' Germany. Never change a running system. The network infrastructure has become a bit of a running […]
Show full quote

But that was here in good ol' Germany.
Never change a running system. The network infrastructure has become a bit of a running gag, but ISDN was a simple case of "victory desease" - it was really good for its time and a telephone line.
They developed it in the 70s, being at the very forefront of digitalization, then equipped the whole former GDR with what was then the world's most advanced telephone system.
Other places went from POTS directly to DSL.
I was glad to use ISDN from 1998 to 2001. Good ping times.

Ah yes, true. ISDN was also compatible to Datex-P, a classic X.25 network tevhnology.
From what I remember, making BTX (Datex-J) available in ex-GDR was a huge undertaking after 1990. 😬

chinny22 wrote on 2022-03-16, 11:13:

Main drawback will be shipping, CRT's are a pain to pack safely, but if you put it up for free or next o nothing on Facebook Market place or whatever I'm sure someone will grab it.

+1

Gratefully, monochrome monitors like this are very lightweight by comparison.
They may survive a transport, if the packet is well padded.
An ordinary VGA monitor is tricky to ship, though. 😨

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 13 of 13, by imi

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yeah this 9" monochrome screen weighs next to nothing and is pretty small ^^